The U.S. suffered its second billion-dollar weather disaster of 2012 on April 3, when a massive hailstorm and 21 tornadoes hit the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas region, said insurance company Aon Benfield, in their latest monthly Global Catastrophe Recap Report. They put the damage at $1 billion. The tornado outbreak included one EF-3 twister, which hit Forney, Texas. A severe hailstorm during the outbreak hit the DFW airport, damaging over 100 airplanes, and forcing the temporary closure of the airport. The other billion-dollar weather disaster of 2012 was the March 2 - 3 tornado outbreak in the Midwest and Southeast. NOAA put the total cost of the tornadoes that killed 41 people in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, and Alabama during the outbreak at $1.5 billion. There were two EF-4 tornadoes, one which devastated Henryville, Indiana, and another that plowed through Crittenden, Kentucky. On average, the U.S. sees 3 - 4 billion-dollar weather disasters each year, with 1 - 2 of these being severe weather/tornado outbreaks. In 2011, we already had five billion-dollar weather-related disasters by the first week of May, so we are well behind last year's pace. NOAA's National Climatic Data Center logged a record fourteen billion-dollar weather disasters in 2011. There has been just one other billion-dollar disaster in the world this year, according to Aon Benfield--severe flooding in Australia's New South Wales and Victoria states in late February and early March that caused $1.58 billion in damage. A separate flooding episode in late January and early February came close, causing an additional $920 million in damage in Australia.

Video 1. Dramatic video of semi-trailers being tossed more than 100 feet in the air by the Lancaster, Texas tornado of April 3, 2012.

Canada and Midwest U.S. frost/freeze damage in the hundreds of millions of dollarsDamage to fruit trees in Ontario, Canada due to a series of frosts and freezes over the past six weeks will easily top $100 million dollars, said the Windsor Star this week. About 80% of the Ontario apple crop was wiped out. At the Ann Arbor Farmer's Market yesterday, I talked to a local apple grower who told me that her orchard in Southeast Lower Michigan had suffered at least a 90% loss of its apple crop. She said the story was similar for all the growers of apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, grapes, cherries, and plums in Michigan. "The only year that can compare was 1945," she told me, "and that year wasn't nearly as bad as 2012." Fruit crops in Pennsylvania and New York State have suffered heavy damage as well, and the total damage to agriculture from this year's freezes will likely be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. All of this damage occurred despite the fact that April temperatures across the region were above average. The culprit was the extraordinary "Summer in March" weather in mid-March 2012, which brought a week of 80°F-plus temperature to the region that triggered a record early bloom.

Figure 2. Morning satellite image of Eastern Pacific Invest 90E.

Hurricane season is comingIt's now mid-May, which means that hurricane season is about to start in the East Pacific. The official start of the East Pacific hurricane season is May 15, and the action is already starting to heat up. The first "Invest" of 2012 in the East Pacific, Invest 90E, is located about 700 miles south of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and is moving westward out to sea, posing no threat to any land areas. The European Center model predicts the possibility of another system getting organized in the East Pacific, closer to the coast of Mexico, during the period Wednesday - Friday (May 16 - 18.)

In the Atlantic, where hurricane season officially starts on June 1, the action may also be about to heat up. For the past several days, the GFS model has been consistently predicting the development of a subtropical storm in the Western Caribbean, or waters near Florida, sometime May 19 - May 21. The European Center model has not been on board with this, but has been predicting a very moist flow of tropical air will develop, bringing heavy rains to Florida May 19 - 20. So, it is possible we will see the Atlantic's first named storm occur in May this year, but the models are very unreliable this far out.

For the guy that said that disturbance east of 90E will becoming absorbed and that it wouldn't stay a separate entity, he is still wrong. You can see two separate areas of vorticity that are becoming farther and farther apart as 90E slowly moves west-northwest.

I could see another blowup of convection, the convection is deceiving if you look at visible you can see the circulation is still steadily moving nne at 3-5 mph, but the convection is running off and dying... This time is when we need to see a blow up of convection if we are going to get a named storm out of this. This was why I was hesitant to be onboard with this, it looked impressive, but I was thinking ahead and wanted to see what was going to happen first.

B) Ignorant, incompetent morons willing to name any swirl of clouds no matter how unimpressive just so they can justify their jobs (and/or "prove" AGW).

C) Both A and B. Often at the same time.

D) Highly professional meteorologists who have centuries of combined tropical weather education and experience, and as such make the very best decisions they can based on the very best information available.

Based solely on comments made on this site I'd have to choose 'C'. ;o)

B) Ignorant, incompetent morons willing to name any swirl of clouds no matter how unimpressive just so they can justify their jobs (and/or "prove" AGW).

C) Both A and B. Often at the same time.

D) Highly professional meteorologists who have centuries of combined tropical weather education and experience, and as such make the very best decisions they can based on the very best information available.

B) Ignorant, incompetent morons willing to name any swirl of clouds no matter how unimpressive just so they can justify their jobs (and/or "prove" AGW).

C) Both A and B. Often at the same time.

D) Highly professional meteorologists who have centuries of combined tropical weather education and experience, and as such make the very best decisions they can based on the very best information available.

D of course. Sure they make decisions we might not agree with, or might even be completely wrong, but even the smartest people on this blog make mistakes too.

B) Ignorant, incompetent morons willing to name any swirl of clouds no matter how unimpressive just so they can justify their jobs (and/or "prove" AGW).

C) Both A and B. Often at the same time.

D) Highly professional meteorologists who have centuries of combined tropical weather education and experience, and as such make the very best decisions they can based on the very best information available.

B) Ignorant, incompetent morons willing to name any swirl of clouds no matter how unimpressive just so they can justify their jobs (and/or "prove" AGW).

C) Both A and B. Often at the same time.

D) Highly professional meteorologists who have centuries of combined tropical weather education and experience, and as such make the very best decisions they can based on the very best information available.

B) Ignorant, incompetent morons willing to name any swirl of clouds no matter how unimpressive just so they can justify their jobs (and/or "prove" AGW).

C) Both A and B. Often at the same time.

D) Highly professional meteorologists who have centuries of combined tropical weather education and experience, and as such make the very best decisions they can based on the very best information available.

The answer is D, but what is your point? Just curious as to why you would post this question now

B) Ignorant, incompetent morons willing to name any swirl of clouds no matter how unimpressive just so they can justify their jobs (and/or "prove" AGW).

C) Both A and B. Often at the same time.

D) Highly professional meteorologists who have centuries of combined tropical weather education and experience, and as such make the very best decisions they can based on the very best information available.

A 1027 MB HIGH IS CENTERED OFF THE COAST OF NORTH CAROLINA NEAR 35N75W. A COLD FRONT IS OVER THE W ATLANTIC FROM 32N62W TO 27N70W. A PREFRONTAL TROUGH IS ALONG 30N61W 22N63W. SCATTERED MODERATE TO STRONG CONVECTION IS FROM 21N-31N BETWEEN 60W-64W. ANOTHER SURFACE TROUGH IS N OF HISPANIOLA ALONG 25N70W 21N72W. SCATTERED MODERATE CONVECTION IS FROM 21N-24N BETWEEN 70W-72W. A DEEP 1012 MB LOW IS OVER THE E ATLANTIC CENTERED NEAR 32N30W. THE UPPER LEVEL CIRCULATION IS OVER A LARGE AREA N OF 16N BETWEEN 15W-55W. SCATTERED MODERATE CONVECTION IS JUST N OF THE CENTER FROM 32N-34N BETWEEN 30W-32W. THIS SYSTEM SHOWS SIGNS OF SUBTROPICAL FORMATION WITH NEAR GALE WINDS NEAR THE CENTER. EXPECT...OVER THE NEXT 24 HOURS FOR THE W ATLANTIC FRONT TO MOVE E AT 10-15 KT...AND FOR THE DEEP LOW TO MOVE LITTLE.